— Thoughts, Coding, History — 1 min read
The history of computers and programming is fascinating. I've only recently begun to scratch the surface, yet I keep getting amazed by (a) the innovativeness and genius of man & woman past, (b) their compounding rapid progress, and (c) how the essence of programming is still the same despite it being a totally new landscape.
Watch this video of one of the programmers (Kathleen Mauchly) of the ENIAC. [Don't mind the awful title.]
Isn't it interesting how similar that sounds to coding today?
The ENIAC women were given a stack of blueprints [documentation] to figure out how to use the machine and program it [code] in 3 months with no background/ knowledge of computers [still not necessary today].
She describes debugging just as we would today. You had to test the machine [run it] to find and track any fused tubes [errors].
But what really made me smile was how she described working on the ENIAC:
"I had a lot of fun working on that machine. Just an absolutely wonderful time."